The Nation, 26 September 2014

A prominent Uighur scholar, Ilham Tohti, has been sentenced to life in prison for running a website advocating better relations between Beijing and the minorities it struggles to govern.

The government didn’t like the content or the discussion the website generated. It is widely believed that his conviction was politically motivated.

Amnesty International called Tuesday’s verdict “deplorable”. The European Union, the United States and the United Nations have called for Tohti’s release, but Beijing is unlikely to budge, or at least not until the full legal process has been exhausted. It is bad enough that Beijing has, once again, shown no mercy to someone who dared question the conduct of state officials. But Tohti was actually doing something that warranted China’s thanks, not punishment.

Far from calling for separatism, he was advocating that the Uighur remain Chinese, though under terms of mutually respectful and peaceful coexistence.

However, in doing so, Tohti called into question the narrow, state-constructed narrative of Chinese nationality. Beijing deems this a crime, worthy of severe penalty, especially if the questioning comes from members of a minority group like the Uighur, who form the majority in the Autonomous Region of Xinjiang.

Xinjiang has been rocked by years of political violence and it has spread to cities elsewhere, such as Kunming and Beijing. The end is nowhere in sight. China chooses to blame this violence on Uighur terrorists, but a glance at recent history shows that it is deeply rooted in Uighur resentment at biased and heavy-handed Chinese rule in Xinjiang.

The violence should not be condoned, but slapping the “terrorist” label on anyone who questions the conduct of the state not only inflames the situation but also ignores the root cause of the conflict.

In recent months China has responded harshly to the violence by launching a crackdown not just on the ethnic Uighur in Xinjiang but on Islam itself.

During Ramadan in July, for example, police stepped up house-to-house searches looking for anyone or anything “linked to separatism”. Muslims were prohibited from observing the holy month in the traditional way, by fasting, despite this being one of the five pillars of Islam. Muslims students and civil servants were prevented from attending weekly prayers.

Meanwhile, Xinjiang police have arrested women merely for wearing Muslim headscarves, provoking further protests from Uighurs living there.

Obviously the authorities believe they know what constitutes “a good Muslim”. Such an attitude is self-defeating, however. It generates resentment among not only the Uighur but also non-Uighur Chinese Muslims, who might feel their faith is being attacked.

By turning this conflict into a battle against Islam, rather than an effort to seek a comfortable level of coexistence with the Uighur community, China risks shooting itself in the foot in the long run by alienating Muslims across the whole country.

Thailand is not exactly out of the loop, either. Uighur refugees from Xinjiang have been making their way here in the hope of gaining safe sanctuary. Thailand is left stuck between the need to placate powerful China and the desire to uphold humanitarian principles, which rule out forcibly repatriating the Uighur refugees.

Thailand has similar problems of its own, with an insurgency in its Muslim-majority southernmost provinces. While the authorities here might not interfere with the religious freedom of Muslim Malays in the South, its handling of the conflict shares many features of Beijing’s narrow-minded and heavy-handed attitude to the Uighur.

Like their Chinese counterparts, Thai leaders over the years have refused to rethink their narrow nation-state narrative and allow more room for minorities. The citizens of China and Thailand are living with the consequences of that blinkered governance.

http://www.nationmultimedia.com/opinion/China-stoking-fires-of-Uighur-resentment-30244134.html